


I Trusted You

by Kali588



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Attempted Angst, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-02
Updated: 2016-01-02
Packaged: 2018-05-11 05:37:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5615812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kali588/pseuds/Kali588
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ficlet for the prompt "(I) trusted (you)"</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Trusted You

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shadesfalcon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shadesfalcon/gifts).



> Submitted by polyamoryavengers, AKA shadesfalcon. Highly recommend a follow on Tumblr if you don't already! You can also follow me at itsnotokbutwereallright and submit your own request.

Capable? Absolutely. Immaculate? Especially in her professional life. Exacting? Wikipedia literally had her image show up for any definition of the word. She still wasn’t sure how much money Tony had donated for them to lock that in so no one else could edit those articles. Even after the fight was over, he had left it up. But trusting? That was not a synonym for Pepper Potts. Her trust was hard earned, and the receiving party felt the metaphorical weight. 

Each member of the team had received the gift of that trust, over time. Pepper thought of this as she felt the attempt to grab her hand. Happy, her first partner in the fight to keep Tony Stark together. Oddly, Jarvis. Tony, after so many years. Cap. Natasha. Bruce. Thor. Clint. 

But now, as she watched the blank faces of Natasha and Clint, and the slightly guilty looks of the rest, Pepper felt something inside of her break. She wiped the tears that had just begun to form from her eyes, and crossed her arms over chest. 

“How long?”

It was Natasha that answered. “Not long after SHIELD fell. It took time to go through the file dump, but Tony scrubbed it so no one could tell these files had been deleted.”

“I see.” She took a moment to compose herself into her CEO persona, then smiled like a politician and said, “It was wonderful to see you, Phil. I’m sure everyone is looking forward to working with you again. If you’ll excuse me, I have a few things of my own to attend.” 

She didn’t hear his response but assumed it was unfailingly polite. She began to clip off to the elevator to go to her own office in the Tower, and could hear the rapid steps following. 

“Pep, don’t be that way. You know I wasn’t a big SHIELD fan, but Phil and his team…they’re doing good work, and they needed the secrecy,” Tony implored her, almost whispering in an attempt to keep the others from overhearing.

“You know what, Tony? I get that. But he was a _friend_ , one that we went to his _funeral_. You didn’t think I would be able to keep his secret? You didn’t think I would want to know that someone I care about is actually alive and mostly well!?” She heard her voice rise on the last one and took a deep breath. 

“Pepper, don’t -”

“ _You_ don’t. After all this time, you can’t trust me? What kind of parallel universe are we in that you can’t trust me, when I trusted you?” He opened his mouth and she cut him off. “I said don’t. I’m going upstairs. You do your Avengers thing. And when you tell them all about this conversation, I assure you that no one has escaped my wrath.” 

She exited, and Tony shuffled back to the group, his hand rubbing the back of his head. Steve raised a brow at him, and he responded, “She trusted us.” Then whispered, “She trusted me.”


End file.
